Sunday, March 21, 2010

Trying to rebuild Kenyan communities after floods

Mary Kiio in IPS: After torrential rains and floods claimed lives in Kenya’s North Rift region, hundreds of displaced people are now in dire need of relief aid. In Turkana, one of the worst affected areas, hundreds of homes have been washed away by floods or buried under landslides. Access to clean water and sanitation have become a major issue in the area, where the displaced have to relieve themselves in bushes.

"My house was suddenly filled with water. My toilet was carried away, and also the vegetables, which I had planted on my farm," lamented Godfrey Chume, one of the displaced residents in the Turkana area. The father of two said he gathered up his family members and quickly ran up a hill to be swept away by the torrents. "My boys came down with a fever. For now, my family is staying with neighbours, as I work towards rebuilding what was destroyed," Chuma told IPS.

Strong flood waters caused the Kerio river to burst its banks in the area in early March, destroying irrigation schemes, roads as well as fields, especially sorghum and maize crops, which is likely to result in food shortages for many months to come.

Chume says his and other families, who live in a settlement called California, in the Turkana district, say they have not been reached by any of the relief aid distributed by government and non-governmental organisations. They have been struggling to put enough food on the table and have used their little savings to buy from a nearby town. But in the long-run, they will end up in a difficult situation, Chume believes, because their livelihoods depend on the yields from their farmlands.

…Other agencies have particularly focused on limiting the cholera outbreak caused by lack of sanitation. "We have helped over 600 people affected by the cholera outbreak, through (education) and water treatment tablets," says Emanuel Mkoba, integrated programme area manager at international aid organisation WorldVision. Throughout Kenya, the Red Cross estimates that more than 10,000 people have been affected by the floods, claiming the lives of 19 people. Hundreds of cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys – livestock indispensible for rural livelihoods – have been lost…..

June 2009 – At the studios of Cleanskies TV, I was interviewed about the costs of climate change, and discussed adaptation efforts underway in the US and around the world.

May 2009 – I helped draft the scenarios for Rising Waters, a multistakeholder scenarios effort focused on climate change adaptation in the Hudson Valley. The final report is now completed and available here.

May 2008 – I reviewed two books on climate and energy in the New Leader magazine: James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, plus Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

January 2008 – A very local paper covers a very global issue.... The Litchfield County Times in northwestern Connectictut ran an article in January 2008 about Carbon-Based.

Now available: Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

A selection of my writings from 2011, plus some of my posts, as well as links... all focusing on the risks of climate change